As mothers of girls, we think about certain things unique to raising a daughter. I am particularly thoughtful about how I talk about my body in front of my girls if I do at all. I sometimes don’t believe my body is strong and healthy, but fake it until you make it, right?
I often wonder what kind of an impact my words will have on their future body image and sexuality. I need to instill a love and respect for their bodies so that the harmful and degrading images of young girls they will be exposed to will not permeate their precious hearts, like using truthful information and positive messages as a vaccination against the virus of over-sexualizing girls.
Not too long ago, I overheard a conversation between two mothers about this very topic. One mother was amused and distraught that her four-year-old daughter wanted to know what puberty was. The consensus was that the little girl was too young to understand. This made me think about when my children have asked me questions I was not yet ready to answer.
It occurred to me that because our children notice when something is off with us on other occasions, like when we are sad or angry, they most likely can also sense our discomfort around discussing their body and reproductive system. If a child wanted to know how her heart and the circulatory system worked, we wouldn’t think twice about giving her that information. Most likely, we would not experience the type of panic that can accompany a question like, “What is a clitoris for?” We would use the language she could understand based on her stage of development.
What if we used the same approach when teaching our daughters about how their reproductive system works? If we believed our reproductive system was beautiful and special, would she also grow to think that about her own?
How would it feel to teach our girls that the female body is capable of incredible things? We could tell them that, as females, our bodies are made to conceive, grow, birth, and nourish a human baby. A sense of normalcy is created when said matter-of-factly, as we would when teaching them about their hearts.
My youngest is four, and because she has an older sibling, she is privy to the information she would otherwise not have. At her age, the only information that she can understand is what her genitals are called. She loves to scream “vagina” at the top of her lungs when we are in a store. Her sister and I laugh when she does this, which, as we know, provides positive reinforcement for the said negative behavior. So, because she gets a positive reaction from her mother and sister, she says it a lot.
When I pick her up from school, she will sometimes greet me with a “hi vagina,” often loudly, and if she says it at the dinner table, her older sister will say “no potty words at the table!” This is interesting to me and makes me wonder where my first grader thought that vagina was a “potty word.”
True, most of us don’t walk around saying vagina as part of our daily conversations, nor do we say penis. Yet, children often group the names of their reproductive organs along with “poop” and “pee.” They do this, most likely, because they get a reaction from us. We know that the response, positive or negative, reinforces the behavior.
When my little one screams the name of her genitals in a store, she gets the positive reaction of laughter. Some children may get a time out or be reprimanded when they say these words, a negative reaction. As parents, we don’t all share the same values and comfort levels regarding this issue, so our children will all respond differently.
Furthermore, when our children start elementary school, they may not be permitted to use these words. In my house, the message my children get from their peers overrides my message. I speak about all of the parts of their body matter-of-factly with them, using neither positive nor negative tones. This doesn’t seem to matter because the words for both male and female genitals carry with them a powerful urge to burst into laughter.
Some parents still can’t use these words without being transported back to seventh grade health class! We can still recall doubling over with laughter at the mere mention of the words vagina or penis.
I haven’t gotten to this point yet, but I know it’s coming. Now I have a strategy to not gloss it over,
I love this! I also don’t lie to my kids when they ask me questions and I explain it simply and in age appropriate ways and I get a lot of comments from mothers about how “they’re too young” and I just simply can’t see how lies can serve them now or later.